Mostly a photography related blog. Think About Photography refers to being ready for getting a photo at all times. This generally means carry your camera around with you as much as possible. Even without a camera, I am imagining how scenes would look in a photo..

Thursday, April 8, 2010

Fascination and Photography

I recently listened to a podcast on Six Pixels of Separation, where the author interviewed Sally Hogshead. The podcast was mostly about marketing, but I found Ms. Hogshead take on Fascination very fascinating (sorry). No one has yet found out why we are fascinated about the things we are. What is fascinating to me may not be fascinating to you, but chances are it will be for at least one other of the 6 billion people on the planet. Fascinate is defined as : to arouse the interest or curiosity of; allure. I have found that what I am fascinated by changes over time. For me, most of these changes have been slight - I have not awakened one day to be fascinated by something bizarre and completely different (yet).

I also listened to an interview of Tom Alleman on Rangefinder Radio. Tom is a photographer who uses a Holga camera to capture very interesting photographs. During the course of the interview, Tom mentions that he does not preplan his photos, he simply walks till he finds something that catches his eye, then waits for the light, subject, and background to be right. I equate "finding something that catches your eye" to "fascination".

I am fascinated by a lot of things. This carries over to my photography. I am not going to stop taking pictures of the things that fascinate me because I can't be characterized as a photographer in a certain genre or niche. This is not important to me. What is important, is to take photos of things that fascinate me. And to continually improve my technique. And to do as Alleman says: wait for the light, the subject, and background to be right.